You can sell a house during probate, and most Los Angeles estates end up doing it. Whether you need a court hearing to close depends on the authority you were granted at appointment.
Get that authority right at the start and the sale looks almost normal. Get it wrong and you are explaining overbidding to a buyer who has never heard of it.
Under the Independent Administration of Estates Act, a personal representative with full authority can sell real property without court confirmation, after giving notice of the proposed action to the people entitled to it. They have a window to object. If nobody objects, you close like a normal escrow.
With limited authority, or when someone does object, the sale goes to a confirmation hearing. That is where the court reviews the price and where other buyers can show up and bid.
Overbidding is real and buyers hate it
At a confirmation hearing, a competing buyer can appear and bid the property up under a statutory formula, and your accepted offer can lose in open court to someone who never toured the house. Buyers who understand this discount their offers for the risk. Buyers who do not understand it walk away in week five.
The probate referee's appraisal establishes a benchmark, and a sale meaningfully below it draws scrutiny. Judges are protecting beneficiaries from a representative who sells to a friend at a favor price, which happens often enough that the suspicion is earned. Document the marketing. Keep the offers you rejected.
Selling as-is is normal in probate, and disclosure obligations are reduced for a representative who never lived in the property. Reduced is not eliminated. If you know the roof leaks, say the roof leaks.
Money the estate spends while it waits
- Mortgage payments, which do not pause because the borrower died
- Property taxes and a homeowners policy rewritten for a vacant dwelling, usually at a higher premium
- Cleanout, staging, and the repairs a 1958 house needs before anyone will finance it
- Utilities kept on, because a house shown with no power does not sell
“My least favorite conversation is the one where three siblings agree the house should be sold and one of them is living in it. The estate is not a landlord and the occupant is not a tenant, exactly, and unwinding that costs more than anyone expects. Handle occupancy first, before you call a realtor.”
Delia Vasquez-HartThe fee consequence nobody mentions
Sale proceeds can raise the fee base. The statutory percentage is calculated on the inventory value plus gains realized during administration, so a house appraised at $1.1 million that sells for $1.3 million enlarges the number both the attorney and the executor are entitled to. Separately, the sale itself may support a request for extraordinary fees, which the court reviews on its own merits.
Questions we get asked
Can we sell before the court appoints anyone?
No. Escrow will not close without Letters, because nobody has authority to sign for the estate. You can prepare, clean, and interview agents in the meantime.
Do we need a realtor who has done probate sales?
Strongly yes, and not for the marketing. You want someone who can explain confirmation and overbid to a buyer's agent without losing the deal.
What if an heir wants to buy the house?
It is doable, and it is scrutinized. Expect an arm's length price supported by the appraisal, full notice to the other beneficiaries, and probably a court hearing even if you have full authority.
Can the estate rent the house out instead?
Sometimes, with the right authority. Understand that you are then a landlord under Los Angeles rules, with everything that implies, while trying to close an estate.
Before you list, confirm in writing which authority the Letters actually grant. Email us the Letters and the appraisal and we will tell you whether your escrow needs a hearing date.